Computer Info – April 30, 2003

 

No Meeting This Week

            This handout is just to recap- what John Watkins demonstrated last week.

            Since John did not get much done in Word – he said that will be his topic again when he returns in June.

            The next meeting will be May 7th.

 

Internet Answering Machine

It was mentioned that CallWave (which is a very popular internet answering machine that requires you to signup with your phone company for Call Forwarding) – is no longer going to be free.  And as I searched the web, I found that most (and maybe all) of this type of program is going to start charging for their services.  I really don’t know of a good alternative to CallWave.  I did find this one which could possibly take it’s place; but I do not know anyone that is using it.

 

BuzMe Free

            http://www.buzme.com/setup/select_service.asp

This one seems to work by the Call Waiting system – and you do not have to be signed up with your telephone company to have the Call Waiting system.

 

FinePrint

http://www.fineprint.com/products/fineprint/index.html

This program was mentioned at the last meeting.  It has a Print Preview that has editing capabilities so that you can determine which pages you wish to print – which can be very helpful when you are trying to print only a portion of the web page that you are visiting.  It is free to download and use – but you must purchase it (and register it) for $39 to be able to print more than 8 pages of any document (or web page) that you wish to print.

 

Pen Drives

            The Pen Drive was discussed at the last meeting.  It is a very small device (smaller than a pen) that usually hooks to your keychain.  The price is determined by the amount of information that can be stored on it.  I found the following description of one that might explain a little more about it.

 

            Accessing and transporting data has never been easier than with the Pen Drive. The Pen Drive is a USB FLASH MEMORY DRIVE and can support up to 1GB disk space, which is 710 times more than a 1.44MB floppy disk. The Pen Drive is a plug and play device, just simply plug into any USB port and the computer will automatically detect it as a removable drive.  Now you can read, write, copy, delete and move data from your hard disk drive to the Pen Drive or from the Pen Drive to your hard disk drive. You can even play MP3 files, run applications or view videos directly from the Pen Drive and a lot more.....

            The Pen Drive is so compact that you can carry it with you anywhere and you hardly notice its existence. It also comes in various storage capacities of 16MB, 32MB, 64MB, 128MB,256MB,512MB,and 1GB, so now you don't have to carry a laptop computer with you to work. The Pen Drive does not require any battery, it does not need any software or cables and it is compatible with IBM PC / compatible desktop and laptop computers with USB port.

 

Security Patches for Windows XP

            Microsoft has issued a new patch – number 811493 (Buffer Overrun in Windows Kernel Message Handling which could Lead to Elevated Privileges).  The patch — which was designed to stave off a buffer overrun that could allow attackers to elevate privilege permissions on users' machines — ended up slowing some users' systems to a crawl.

            This patch was first issued on April 16th and has been re-issued on April 23rd to include information that states that the slowing down of the operating system comes when the patch is applied to Windows XP users who have the Service Pack 1 installed.

            This is a patch that is not needed by the typical home user – it is basically needed in an office environment when many machines are networked together with certain privileges allowed to each one.

 

Word

Why doesn’t everything show up on my menus?

            If you don’t like the way your menus are displayed in Word (where all of the items don’t show when you first click on the menu -- but later finally appear) – you can change this.

            Go to VIEW – TOOLBARS – CUSTOMIZE – OPTIONS.  Under Personalized Menus and Toolbars – Place a checkmark before “Always Show Full Menus”.

 

Why can’t I see my margins?

            The default view for a new document in Word is the Normal view.  If you change it to the Print Layout, you will be able to see the margins.  This can be done from VIEW – PRINT LAYOUT. 

 

Why does it automatically change the first letter of a new line to a capital letter when I didn’t type it?

            Of course, normally we want all new sentences to begin with a capital letter, and the computer assumes that if you have entered a carriage return (hit the ENTER key) that you want to start a new line.

            If you wish to turn off this automatic feature, go to TOOLS – AUTO CORRECT – on the AUTOCORRECT tab, take the checkmark off from “Capitalize First Letter of Sentences”. – Or if it only annoys you occasionally, you can re-type the letter and it will stay as a small letter rather than a capital letter.

 

I left the Caps Lock on when I was typing – so now I have to re-type everything>>>>

            The best way to correct all of your typing when you have done this – is to highlight the area that you wish to correct – choose FORMAT – CHANGE CASE.  Choose TOGGLE CASE or SENTENCE CASE – and everything will be corrected.

 

I am always getting red lines under words that I type all the time.  How do I stop this?

            The red lines, of course, indicate that the word is misspelled (at least according to the dictionary that comes with Word).  If it is a word that you use a lot (usually this will be a person’s name or company, etc), you can add it to the dictionary – right-click on the word and choose ADD TO DICTIONARY.

 

Automatic Updates

            Rather than having Windows automatically install every patch that is available – you can turn the feature off and then run the Windows Update at a time of your choosing – and only apply the patches that you think you need.

            To turn the AUTOMATIC UPDATE off – go to CONTROL PANEL – SYSTEM – and the AUTOMATIC UPDATE tab.  Remove the checkmark from Keep My Computer Up-To-Date.

            Then when you wish to run the Windows Update, go to START – WINDOWS UPDATE.  Review the latest security patches and determine if you wish to download and install them.

 

How to Find the Last Document You Were Working On in Word

            Don’t know where you stored the last document that you were working on – and maybe you don’t remember what you called it.  Well, you can find it by opening your Word program and choosing FILE.  You will then see a list of the latest documents that you have been working on.  The last one will be listed as number 1.

 

AT&T – Text to Speech

http://www.research.att.com/projects/tts/demo.html

            This is the site that John demonstrated about typing in a text message and have it translated to a spoken voice.  Try it.  It can translate it into French, German and Spanish for you.  If you are using Internet Explorer, when you click on the SPEAK button, it will take you to WindowsMedia.Com to read the message for you.  If you are interested in saving the spoken message, you will have to make the following changes to the WindowsMedia.Com.  Choose MEDIA OPTIONS – SETTINGS – RESET PREFERED TYPES.  Hopefully by doing this, your spoken message should open in Windows Media Player.  Once here, you should be able to save your message as a WAV (wave) file or MP3 file.

            Those of you who were at the meeting will say “But you couldn’t save it from your Windows Media Player”.  And they are right, I couldn’t.  I came home and I looked it up.  This is what I found. 

            ---- When you click the File menu to try to save a file in Windows Media Player 7 or 7.1, the Save and Save As commands are missing.  Why -- because Windows Media Player 7 and 7.1 do not use the Save and Save As commands to save files.